[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Six Things That Block Your Wi-Fi, and How to Fix Them here

[richeemxx]

One simple yet highly effective approach to remedy most of the problems you suggest spending money to fix is placement and settings! Centrally locating your router or moving it away from many of the "interfering" devices will help just as much as anything else suggested. Just the same swapping channels on your router can help.

Electronic devices aside walls, especially bathrooms with lots of plumbing, adversely effect signal strength. You'd be surprised how much moving your router out of a back bedroom or office and putting it into the middle of the house can help. Much the same getting it out of a kitchen or "electronically" clustered living room helps.

You don't mention QoS at all. Most newer routers allow home users to setup quality of service to limit high bandwidth usage things like gaming. Cap the kids and their gaming or torrenting and you'd be surprised how much speed you get back.

[AgentF]

richeemxx, on 16 May 2011 - 07:01 PM, said:

One simple yet highly effective approach to remedy most of the problems you suggest spending money to fix is placement and settings! Centrally locating your router or moving it away from many of the "interfering" devices will help just as much as anything else suggested.

That's good in theory, but isn't always practical. Placing a lengthy Ethernet cable in order to centralize the wireless router kind of defeats its purpose.

[myloginname]

AgentF, on 16 May 2011 - 09:43 PM, said:

richeemxx, on 16 May 2011 - 07:01 PM, said:

One simple yet highly effective approach to remedy most of the problems you suggest spending money to fix is placement and settings! Centrally locating your router or moving it away from many of the "interfering" devices will help just as much as anything else suggested.

That's good in theory, but isn't always practical. Placing a lengthy Ethernet cable in order to centralize the wireless router kind of defeats its purpose.

Very true. I have my router in the cold room in my basement. It is a Wireless N, but nothing spectacular. Still, I get at least 3 bars no matter where I am in the house, mainly because I know how to setup my wireless network properly. Like AgentF mentioned, running an ethernet cable from basement to first floor isn't exactly practical nor pretty. Especially when routers can cover so much area these days. If I was using my older routers, then yes, I would be be forced to run that cable. However, that is a matter of having a crappy router.

When you are stuck in situations like that, buying upgraded equipment might be the only solution, as all others wouldn't be practical. Also, location is totally different from what this article is talking about, so that wouldn't be an argument.

[fklafs]

Once again it is simply "toss out your old stuff and replace with brand new which will be classified by the writes in 1 years as tossable junk

[GrossTyro]

What about the most primitive and obvious barriers?

Suppose the router sits in a room where metal file cabinets block signal in one direction?

Aren't concrete or brick walls worse barriers than block walls?

Aren't block walls worse barriers than wood and plasterboard?

[kenh999]

"There are basically three nonoverlapping channels..."

Ok, which channels are they?

[cpresco]

kenh999, on 26 May 2011 - 01:53 AM, said:

"There are basically three nonoverlapping channels..."

Ok, which channels are they?

The non-overlapping channels are 1, 6 and 11.

From what I've seen most consumer routers are configured for channel 6 out of the box.

[gmnelson2009]

for channel crowding you can use the program inSSIDer from metageek to examine all the traffic your wifi radio detects then reset your router to the channel with the lowest existing traffic. as for moving to the 5Ghz band you had better check your devices first to see what speeds are available, my laptop can use either 2.4 Ghz or 5 Ghz but only has 300 megabit (.11n) on the 2.4 band, the 5Ghz band only has (.11a) available which is much slower.

[cowboy4884]

I'm trying to find a way to completely shield or block wifi access from my 2Wire modem. I have a few neighbor that are using software and outdoor antennas to hack into my system.. Ive changed the access key a number of times but their back on before the day is over.

[AgentF]

cowboy4884, on 10 February 2012 - 08:28 AM, said:

I'm trying to find a way to completely shield or block wifi access from my 2Wire modem. I have a few neighbor that are using software and outdoor antennas to hack into my system.. Ive changed the access key a number of times but their back on before the day is over.

To completely block WiFi access, you basically login to the Administrator panel (just like you do to change the wireless password), and disable the wireless signal setting. For my Linksys router, I login via my web browser, go to the Wireless tab, and set the Wireless mode to Disabled. Then, you will only be able to utilize the router via an Ethernet cable and your neighbors won't be able to steal your signal because one is not being broadcast.

[waldojim]

cowboy4884, on 10 February 2012 - 08:28 AM, said:

I'm trying to find a way to completely shield or block wifi access from my 2Wire modem. I have a few neighbor that are using software and outdoor antennas to hack into my system.. Ive changed the access key a number of times but their back on before the day is over.

This sounds like an ATT modem. First, make sure it is actually running WPA/2, most of them are only using WEP. WEP takes about 5 minutes to break into. Second, change your key to something obscenely long. It takes a modern computer less than 10 minutes to break an 8 digit password. Surprisingly, you can break 12 digits in less than 2 weeks. You really need to go with something 16 characters or longer. A passphrase with swapped out letters is best. Il0veR@m3nN00dl3s for example.

[RobertBrockway]

waldojim, on 12 February 2012 - 01:16 AM, said:

cowboy4884, on 10 February 2012 - 08:28 AM, said:

I'm trying to find a way to completely shield or block wifi access from my 2Wire modem. I have a few neighbor that are using software and outdoor antennas to hack into my system.. Ive changed the access key a number of times but their back on before the day is over.

This sounds like an ATT modem. First, make sure it is actually running WPA/2, most of them are only using WEP. WEP takes about 5 minutes to break into. Second, change your key to something obscenely long. It takes a modern computer less than 10 minutes to break an 8 digit password. Surprisingly, you can break 12 digits in less than 2 weeks. You really need to go with something 16 characters or longer. A passphrase with swapped out letters is best. Il0veR@m3nN00dl3s for example.

I agree with the previous posters comments on WEP and password/passphrase length. Seriously, WEP was easily crackable a decade ago. Don't use it. Even WPA1 will generally eventually fall to a sustained brute force attack.

I disagree on one comment:

Replacing letters with numbers in a predictable pattern ('l33t sp34k' style) doesn't help as these substitutions are covered by dictionary attacks and have been for a long time. This technique was out of date more than a decade ago. Using l33t sp34k this just makes it harder for a human to remember and enter the password/passphrase.

As noted, the single best thing that can be done to make a strong passphrase is to make it long. Even words strung together are typically ok as long as they don't form a sentence.

This post has been edited by RobertBrockway: 30 March 2012 - 03:44 PM

[waldojim]

RobertBrockway, on 30 March 2012 - 03:39 PM, said:

Replacing letters with numbers in a predictable pattern ('l33t sp34k' style) doesn't help as these substitutions are covered by dictionary attacks and have been for a long time. This technique was out of date more than a decade ago. Using l33t sp34k this just makes it harder for a human to remember and enter the password/passphrase. The single best thing that can be done to make strong passphrase is to make it long (as the previous poster states). Even words strung together are typically ok as long as they don't form a sentence.

Using a passphrase with random letter swaps like the one I mentioned will require years to break using current hardware. You cannot use ANY form of dictionary attack on that.

[RobertBrockway]

waldojim, on 30 March 2012 - 03:43 PM, said:

RobertBrockway, on 30 March 2012 - 03:39 PM, said:

Replacing letters with numbers in a predictable pattern ('l33t sp34k' style) doesn't help as these substitutions are covered by dictionary attacks and have been for a long time. This technique was out of date more than a decade ago. Using l33t sp34k this just makes it harder for a human to remember and enter the password/passphrase. The single best thing that can be done to make strong passphrase is to make it long (as the previous poster states). Even words strung together are typically ok as long as they don't form a sentence.

Using a passphrase with random letter swaps like the one I mentioned will require years to break using current hardware. You cannot use ANY form of dictionary attack on that.

Sure but random letter swaps were not what was being suggested, l33t sp34k was. I can read words in the example by using mappings consistent with l33t sp34k. I specifically said it was l33t sp34k that didn't help.

This post has been edited by RobertBrockway: 30 March 2012 - 05:06 PM

[waldojim]

RobertBrockway, on 30 March 2012 - 04:56 PM, said:

Sure but random letter swaps were not what was being suggested, l33t sp34k was. I can read words in the example by using mappings consistent with l33t sp34k. I specifically said it was l33t sp34k that didn't help.

Challenge: Come to my place, crack my wifi, and post the password. I will easily take bets the sorry sucker is all talk, and no game.

[prettyricky09]

Quote

One simple yet highly effective approach to remedy most of the problems you suggest spending money to fix is placement and settings! Centrally locating your router or moving it away from many of the "interfering" devices will help just as much as anything else suggested. Just the same swapping channels on your router can help. Electronic devices aside walls, especially bathrooms with lots of plumbing, adversely effect signal strength. You'd be surprised how much moving your router out of a back bedroom or office and putting it into the middle of the house can help. Much the same getting it out of a kitchen or "electronically" clustered living room helps. You don't mention QoS at all. Most newer routers allow home users to setup quality of service to limit high bandwidth usage things like gaming. Cap the kids and their gaming or torrenting and you'd be surprised how much speed you get back.

[mjd420nova]

Every installation is different. Each sits in a bubble surrounded by innumerable radio frequency (RF) emmitting sources. Any one of them can interfere with a WIFI signal. Like an airplane, a massive number of devices lumped together, all emmitting an rf signal. These signals all meet together, create harmonics that are unique to those specific devices. Whether an act of nature or phenomena, one wrong harmonic can interfere with navigation and craft to ground communications. Look around your home, identify all those emmitters and their placements. I have two remote temperature/humidity sensors that just happen to interact with a cordless phone. I'm not too concerned with coverage inside the home, more concerned about the signal that "leaks" out where others might be tempted.